Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Ann Coulter, HumanEvents.com:The Stripper Has No Clothes — Stuart Taylor Jr., the liberal but brilliant legal reporter for the National Journal, described the New York Times' coverage of the Duke lacrosse rape case as "(w)orse, perhaps, than the other recent Times embarrassments" ...

At this point, Gottlieb's memo is the linchpin of the prosecution's case, and every single other fact in the case exonerates the defendants.

I mention all this to point out the Alice-in-Wonderland quality of the Times Jan. 15 editorial titled "Politicizing Prosecutors." The editorial had nothing to do with lunatic Southern prosecutors like Mike Nifong, Barry Krischer and Ronnie Earle threatening to put innocent people in prison for being Republican or "privileged white males"...

Tim Lynch, Cato Institute blog:It’s Not Just About Nifong, Part II — Some will say that the system “worked!” That is, prosecutorial overreaching was exposed and an injustice was averted … so let’s punish Nifong, close this case file, and … move on. I disagree with that. And, in defense of my view, I will introduce you to another prosecutor by the name of Tom Lock, district attorney in Johnston County, North Carolina.

Lock is responsible for jailing an innocent man for four years. It is a long and twisted story, but I’ll give you the highlights...

Without such intense scrutiny, Nifong would still be on the case, and it is doubtful that the North Carolina Bar Association would have launched an ethics investigation. But what about all the other cases that do not get such intense scrutiny? Something to think about.

The Duke lacrosse saga has played itself out as much on the internet as in the courtroom, newspapers, or university halls. I like youtubing Ronaldinho’s greatest goals and e-mailing to my friends as much as the next guy. But the lacrosse mess has put on display the more squalid, sometimes vicious side of the Internet. Only a click away lies a whole ugly galaxy of insults misinterpretations, and, at worst, sick racist hate.

The virtual lacrosse world is Mad Max’s Thunderdome in Gigabytes and bandwidth: no rules apply, or at least not involving those horse-and-buggy or oh-so-yesterday ink age civility, accuracy, or accountability...The most prolific lacrosse blogger is K.C. Johnson, a Brooklyn College history professor with plenty of spare time...

related:KC Johnson: The Arrogance of Starn - Starn seems to believe that the public, the media, and the academy should simply stand aside while Nifong engages in what Susan Estrich has correctly termed “mindboggling” violations of standard procedure...

KC Johnson: Shameless — the lacrosse team’s two most outspoken critics on the Duke faculty are Orin Starn and Peter Wood. The duo have something else in common: they both taught Reade Seligmann, one of the three targets of Mike Nifong’s quixotic crusade. In the last week, Starn and Wood again went public about lacrosse matters. But disappointment awaits anyone hoping the professors might find time to ask how, in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of Durham “justice,” charges could still be pending against one of their former students who has provided multiple, unimpeachable sources that he is demonstrably innocent. Instead, the Starn/Wood tag-team continued to do some volunteer p.r. work to boost support for Nifong’s viewpoint...

KC Johnson: Clarifying the Record, II - Prof. Orin Starn wrote in a recent op-ed piece that "almost one-third of the team had been arrested on public drunkenness and other charges." For the record, fifteen members of the team have received citations over the last four years--thirteen for holding an open beer can in public. This is not something to be proud of or dismissed. But it does need to be put into perspective and measured against the total number of Duke students who have been cited for alcohol violations, especially now that we know that the DPD has adopted an official policy to target and arrest Duke students...

Joe Strupp, Editor & Publisher:Local Paper Defends Coverage Of Crumbling 'Duke Lacrosse' Case — the editor of the local daily paper contends his reporters have covered the story fairly from the beginning. Although a variety of recent developments, including the alleged victim's continued changing story, have prompted some to claim early media coverage unfairly portrayed the suspects in a negative light, Editor Bob Ashley of the Herald-Sun in Durham, N.C., where Duke is located, defended his paper's coverage of the case...

The paper's careful stance is reflected in recent editorials. Although the editorial page reports to him, Ashley says he has not been involved in writing editorials on the case. One piece published on Sunday offered a mixed comment on the decision by embattled District Attorney Mike Nifong to step down from the case and turn it over to the Attorney General. Although it supported the decision, it made it appear as if it was a courageous move by Nifong rather than a forced removal prompted by his own poor actions...

John Podhoretz - column, NY Post:Senseless — Charges in Duke case never fit the facts on the scene - LOCALS - even those who are certain no sex crime was committed there - call 610 N. Buchanan St. "the rape house." It's an ugly little white bungalow that looks from the outside like it hasn't been so much as painted since it was first slapped up just before or during the Great Depression....

In other words, what was alleged to have taken place in there with people stuffed in the bathroom like sardines - beatings and doomed escape efforts and the monstrous taking of turns - would in all likelihood have been physically impossible. It's simple common sense.

And there's the rub. The reason the so-called "Duke rape case" has attracted such intense attention over the past year is that at every turn, simple common sense was overcome and discarded due to an intoxicating cocktail of raw political calculation, shameful butt-covering and self-righteous political correctness that was ingested by nearly every authority figure and political actor in this homely city of 272,000....

WRALNY Congressman Wants Probe of Duke Lacrosse Prosecutor — A second congressman has urged the Department of Justice to investigate whether the district attorney in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault violated the rights of the defendants. Rep. Peter King, whose Long Island district includes relatives of one of the accused students, Collin Finnerty, urged Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to begin an investigation into Mike Nifong, who asked last week to be recused from the case.

"I am deeply disappointed by your apparent decision to defer a decision whether to investigate Mr. Nifong's prosecution of this case," King wrote to Gonzalez, arguing that the FBI should investigate whether the prosecutor may have violated Finnerty's civil rights, including the right to due process under the law.

A message left at Nifong's office was not immediately returned. King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, is the son of a New York Police Department lieutenant. Justice Department officials said Tuesday they had rejected a similar request from North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones, also a Republican. Jones' spokeswoman, Kathleen Joyce, said the congressman still planned to meet next week with the head of the department's Civil Rights Division...

Mike McCusker, Crystal Mess:STFU, Dude. - JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, I spoke to the victim's cousin yesterday, sat down with her, and she does believe that the Duke lacrosse players sexually assaulted her cousin. But at this point, she and her cousin believe that the district attorney has made so many mistakes, justice for them may not be possible....(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)...

UNIDENTIFIED "FEMALE": I feel, I should say, that he used this as an opportunity to get re-elected, and I think it's unfortunate not only for my cousin but for the people of Durham, the black people of Durham who've been -- we feel duped. He went on television and did interview after interview, and led us to believe that he was going to, you know -- my cousin would be vindicated. And now I think the case has just become like a laughing stock. But I believe in my heart that she is not the type of person to just fabricate this story....

Mike McCusker:HoohooHoohoo! — Defense lawyers last week sent subpoenas to Durham police investigators who collected evidence. The subpoenas, signed Jan. 5 by an attorney for Finnerty, were filed in the Office of the Clerk of Durham County Superior Court on Tuesday. The subpoenas require investigators Richard Clayton, Mark Gottlieb, Benjamin Himan and Michele Soucie to be available to testify during the Feb. 5 hearing...

Mike McCusker:Say it, Brother! — REV. JESSE LEE PETERSON, FOUNDER & PRES., BOND: There was a rush to judgment because it was a white on black situation. In this country whenever it's a white on black situation or police on black situation, they always come out of the woodwork. You have Jesse Jackson coming out and promising this girl a scholarship, not even knowing the details. They didn't even wait for the details. The new Black Panther Party coming out and, you know, just making all kind of -- type of threats and things like that. There's a double standard in America today...Why don't they show her face. Why don't they reveal who she is, as they're doing with young men? She's not a victim...they should put this woman in jail...

Jane Stancill, News & Observer:Duke post seeks to defuse '88' ad — Dozens of Duke professors have posted "an open letter to the Duke community" on the Web, explaining an ad last spring that has been widely criticized as a condemnation of lacrosse players.

The new letter, signed by 87 faculty and posted at www.concerneddukefaculty.org, refuses to apologize for the ad and reiterates concerns about issues of race and sexual violence on the Duke campus. It says the so-called "Group of 88" ad published in the Chronicle last April has been grossly misinterpreted. That ad has been a subject of heated debate on blogs, and its signers have received angry and sometimes racist e-mail messages....In the online letter, concerned faculty say they won't apologize despite the fury.

related: KC Johnson: Fact-Checking the (Rump) Group of 88 - For anyone who believes that sexism and racism are “prevalent” in the politically correct atmosphere of any elite college campus, including Duke, I hear that a bridge in my home borough can be purchased cheaply...

Steve Bainbridge blog: The Duke 88 become 87 - what's striking about the ad is the unwillingness of the 87 to admit that political correctness and ideology mattered more to them than guilt or innocence. They acknowledge no error, and apologize only for the pain caused "by what we believe is a misperception" of the original ad...

Joseph Bottum, FirstThings.com: Observation - Except that Duke is also a cruise ship staffed by angry anarchist professors and captained by an administration that will throw its student-passengers overboard at the least hint of a storm. For $46,050 a year (according to the university’s website), Duke will apparently grant you hot-and-cold-running strippers, teachers who hate you, and an administration that trembles every time the wind blows...

The whole ad is maddeningly trite and disingenuous. For instance, check out this line, probably uttered by a black female student: “You go to a party, you get grabbed, you get propositioned, and then you start to question yourself.”

So is this chick trying to say that white boys grab and proposition her at Duke parties, or is she talking about what happens at parties attended mainly by blacks? My guess is the latter, but her out-of-context quote is meant to demonize the white male students, which is the whole purpose of the ad and why a bunch of privileged professors with grudges against white males signed it in the first place.

John Stevenson, Herald-Sun The Organ:New prosecutor is former colleague of Nifong — One of the new prosecutors in the Duke lacrosse sex-offense case is a former colleague of District Attorney Mike Nifong, who stepped aside last week in the face of mounting public and professional pressure.

Special Deputy Attorney General Mary Winstead, who worked with Nifong for several years in the 1980s and early 1990s, is now in charge of the lacrosse prosecution along with Senior Deputy Attorney General James Coman, a former director of the State Bureau of Investigation.

The two received thousands of pages of evidence about the case from Nifong Tuesday, including 1,822 pages of forensic testing information indicating the accuser had DNA on her linked to several men, but not to any Duke lacrosse players. Winstead gained extensive experience with sex-offense matters during her stint in Durham.

Winds of Change:The Duke Lacrosse Rape Hoax: A Pro-Due-Process Faculty Member Speaks (Sort of) — When the scandal broke in March and April 2006, there was no shortage of Duke faculty willing to take a stand. Well over eighty-eight of them contributed to an atmosphere of outrage, as if to seek a pre-trial conviction in the court of public opinion. One of the dogs that hasn't barked has been the voices of professors cautioning against a rush to judgement. Until the case was turned on its head by December 15th's bombshell admission of the head of a DNA testing lab that he conspired with the D.A. to hide exculpatory evidence, only five of Duke's faculty had come out publically in support of the Due Process Rights of the accused ( Coleman, Baldwin, Kimel, Gustafson, Munger). And only a subset of the five had ventured so far as to proclaim that the felony charges lodged against the lacrosse team were in all likelihood concocted by a false accuser in league with a corrupt prosecuter.

Does the imbalance of public pronouncements in favor of a politically-correct fairy tale reflect the numerical dominance of the Hard Left on campus?..